Urwick, William, D.D., a well-known Dublin Independent Minister and philanthropist, was born at Shrewsbury, 8th December 1791. He was educated at Hoxton. On the 19th June 1816 he was ordained to the ministry at Sligo, and accepted the cure of a congregation there. In a public discussion which took place at Easky in 1824, on subjects of Roman Catholic controversy, he was the ablest of the four Protestant speakers. In 1826 he received a call to York-street Chapel, Dublin (which had been erected in 1808 by the followers of the Countess of Huntingdon), and there laboured for forty years. Foremost in every good work, he soon became known and widely respected in Dublin. At the same time that he held clearly and definitely to his own religious convictions, his charity and sympathies were not limited by sect or party. One-tenth of his narrow income was regularly devoted to charitable purposes. His biographer says that "he would rather be taken in by ten undeserving cases than close his heart and hand, through mistaken suspicion, to one deserving object." Anti-slavery, temperance, and every good work outside the pale of the ordinary calls of an evangelical clergyman, received his warm support, and his pulpit was ever open to advocates of causes he approved. Failing health obliged him to abandon the cares of his church in 1866. He died 1 6th July 1868, aged y6, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. He was considerably below the average height: his face and head were strikingly noble. He was the author of nearly thirty books and pamphlets, the most important of which are a History of Dublin,written for the Religious Tract Society, and Biographical Sketches of J.D. La Touche, 1868. [1]

Authorities

↑Urwick, William, D.D., Life and Letters: Edited by his Son. London, 1870.